The boundary confused with punctuation of wild bamboo is displaced with sounds of slashes and whips. The Jumla boys take a playful swing along the green branching clusters and tamed them with their axes and machetes, tugging the hollow culms up the terraces with their sheer strength, trimming them into workable lengths and shouldering them onto the stage to act as props for the drama…
It seems to be that the first day of the year is always a good day for cake. And 6 days later. And 13 days before the new year. It is the annual cake triathlon peeking at the intersection of the close of one year and the beginning of another and there is cause for celebrating the birth of 2 boys and 1 man, or…
We have been rooted to the earth in a way in which that hour between dusk and dawn awaits for quiet, for rest and recuperation. Time seems to stop. But at the darkest hour, the throbbing that hums beneath our feet surfaces above the tranquillity. For the nocturnal, it is an opening of portals to mischief and play, an opportunity to listen to the shadows…
It came with a ruffle and a tussle and a year late. We finally found ourselves shifting earth dust of our new home during Navaratri 2021. The final touch came with helping hands, jitterbugs and blessings from extended family across the Indian border and other Nepali towns. The kitchen went through a startled startup when the installation of the gas stove made a fiery scene.…
An incurable wanderlust, just watching the world go by: Looking up, from humble little Earth,Gaze returned, with poetry from the Sky.Watching Clouds, old as Earth itself,A calligraphy of water against the azure.And upon zenith, tear on sun-kissed land. Breeze whispers in one ear and out the other.Flurrying dusty feet, of hairy honeyed beesSock in floral sprinkles and more in pollen baskets.Arms of gust encircle eagles…
1994 was a year when the unique sound of Dolores O’Riordan, the lead vocalist of Cranberries sang through the charts globally and could be heard on the radio daily. “Zombie” was the Irish alternative rock band’s response to the Provisional IRA’s bomb attacks on Warrington in Cheshire, England in 1993 that resulted in the deaths of 2 young boys and wounding 54 others. The emergence…
Everywhere we live, there is a place where we can linger in formlessness until form takes place. Everywhere we go, there is a path that leads the way; sometimes in the shadow of the moon and sometimes in the starkness of the sun. Every now and then, there is an unbeaten trail prodding a temptation. In this land where the sky meets earth and where…
You left us too soon. In a blink of an eye, you were gone. We were stumped and numbed and anaesthetized.To reflect on mortality in the wake of your departure, taken away so quietly from the clasp of your beloveds, a murkiness so thick and stifling surfaces. It stirs the insides, like a nauseating whirlwind. And then, a sudden void lingers so cold and alien, and…
As the buck moon wanes, Little A, filled with emotion and mortification, stumbled for words to express the absence of empathy in humanity. Squatting in moonlight, streams of tears flushed his sticky cheeks. He had witnessed the cold killing of his extraordinarily large tadpole, at first mistaken as a fish, ripped apart by deft and nimble fingers as little as his. He was vehement to…
It was 2 am. A shard of moonbeam sneaked through the window and shed her light loud on the covers of the bed. I lay awake, quite sure it was the rose moon enticing me to accompany her on this warm night. I accepted her invitation and ambled to the balcony. Greeted by the rosy glow of her perfection and her play on the snow-capped…
It rained relentlessly for 4 months, 4 days, 4 nights and 4 hours. There were periods of drizzle where the people living in the blue metal roof houses came out to clean the shed of their buffaloes. Other times, the sky crumbled into fury storms and out of the east came hailstones thundering and banging on their roofs. A plague of lethargy took hold in…
Whilst watching news on TV that subdued evening, Spot, Grizzy and the Lemmings learned that their captured friends had been flown to China and were caged at the Beijing Zoo under the watchful eye of the army. As yet, there were unresolved debates amongst the people of China on the fate of the dinosaurs. Meanwhile, an auction had been set up for the highest bidders…
It turned out that the town Professor Goat lived in was at the fringe of Nutty Hill, Canada. Finally reunited, Arlo, Spot and Spino decided to accompany him back home. As many young readers may know, Nutty Hill is also home to Grizzy and the Lemmings. Spot, Little A and Big A had watched these hilarious animations on youTube together, many a time grasping their…
Sun was in a foul mood, brooding in fury. He blazed the blue mercilessly, drawing moisture from earth to sky, so much so that, the leeches which had frenziedly soaked up all the water from the monsoon rain were sucked magnetically upward with the process of evaporation. The people living in the blue metal roof houses were usually not bothered by bizarre occurrences in the…
I am what I make of myself. In an attempt, to interpret life as it is. The story could read differently tomorrow. I could wake up to see life more beautiful than I did today, or bleaker than the night before. Which is why it has taken dawns to write, re-write and revise this post. I finally understand that writing is an act of interpretation.…
Mr. Musk was excited like a little bleating lamb at the sight of his Shooting Star hovering over the viewing platform of the great red oak tree in the dreamy landscape of Pluto. They roped down onto the thick branch that wrapped its arms around the platform. Arlo, Spot and Spinosaurus were ecstatic from being back in their tree home. The fragrant string of flowers…
Satellites floating in orbit around the planet have made internet connection in the remotest places of Earth impeccable including the gargantuan Himalaya. Just like a string of pearls dotted across the night sky. When the carriage reached the top of the shaft, the doors opened from above, to reveal a charcoal canvas of twinkling stars. They felt like a dot in the Milky Way. Only…
The formation of the bum cloud, a heavy brown mammatus hovering at 3000 meters, was a ghastly sight. It was dotted with dark lumps and curved around like a buttock. A strange, foul whiff lingered in the air, nothing like they have ever encountered. The wild flowers wilted away. The marmots retreated into their deep burrows. Caterpillars crawled to the underside of the leaves that they…
In a heat wave, unusual things brew in the Himalaya. The lopsided, snowy mountain that looked like a fatty, swirled milky ice-cream with a tender curly tip began to melt into the Oh-No Valley. It started with a droplet. Then, a drop. Heavy plops. Then, a drip. A dribble. A trickle. Like a faucet left carelessly unturned. The blazing sun continued rising high, the gradual…
Arlo, Spot and Spinosaurus were thrilled to discover that Big A and Little A had moved to the Himalaya. It meant that a new adventure was at hand. Arlo and Spot climbed up to the pinnacle of their treehouse in Pluto, a little wooden platform assembled on the highest branch of the great oak tree to catch the next shooting star that was due in…
How the story came to life. The New Year of 2021 took off with humps and bumps of unsuspecting proportions. Excavation works for the communal building started on site without delay, and with the goal of completing the external shell before the arrival of monsoon, for unprotected earth walls and un-tar roads are disagreeable with the incessant rain. Ironically, during this testing period, the need…
It has been over a year since we moved to Astam village. This means that having lived a full cycle of how the seasons come and go, we are beginning to absorb the life pattern that unfolds itself, and appreciate how people live correspondingly to that rhythm. It is ancient wisdom, an intelligent way of living, and a quiet order that has been practised for…
January 2009. One afternoon in Mysore, whilst riding back with Ganesh from a lunch gathering, we collided with another motorcycle whose trajectory intersected with ours and had us displaced to the ground. The incident brought about a few stitches on the knee for a lifetime memory and blistered hands that disabled asana practice for 10 restless days. On informing Guruji, he raised a curious eyebrow…
Licked up in the dust and hullabaloo of Kathmandu and a far cry from the soothing lullaby of Astam village, I write with an ironic sense - of fullness. Words come humped and bumped from a place of uncertainty, frustration and disheartenment; words of transient and fleetingness; words reading disruption of rhythm; words carved out from a journey that we have chosen to put ourselves…